Here comes the new season, not sure I'm ready

I have been coaching cheerleading since 1994. Sometimes it's a hassle, sometimes it's the most incredible opportunity in the world. Once upon a time I thought I should blog about it, maybe write a book someday- they're aren't a lot of male cheer coaches that I'm aware of. But I haven't been keeping up either that blog, or this one. I decided that maybe one problem was that I was writing for an imagined audience that wasn't there, while simultaneously being worried that anyone would read it.

So I've done two things. I adjusted my dlvr.it feed, so that this blog will no longer automatically post on my facebook account and I merged the two blogs. This one may as well include all my writing, not just poetry and politics. When I actually bother to write something I want to share on facebook, I'll just do that manually. I'll still try not to get too out of hand in the event that someone have a cow over something I post here, but my hope it that it will give me a little more freedom to open up and be real, like a journal.

I guess I'm not ready to fold my religious blog, http://malloryprayer.blogspot.com into this one yet, just because it really has taken on a life of it's own. It's not that I want to compartmentalize my faith life, separate from everything else, it's just that it actually has some readers and kind of a following, which neither this blog or the old "Papa Bear" blog seem to. Anyway, here is what may be the last post on that blog, and perhaps the first of many dealing with coaching cheer that will start showing up here.

Originally posted on http://papabear-sidelines.blogspot.com

I'm really tempted to just fold this blog into my main blog, http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com.
I feel like when I really use it, it's more to just vent than to document- let alone build anything book worthy. When I use it to vent, I'm being too reactionary. It seems like rather than relieve my stress, I feel like it only makes me more wound up. It misrepresents how negative coaching cheer can be when actually it's always been an overall very meaningful and rewarding experience for me. And of course, there's always the risk that students or parents that I write about might be offended.

Like at the beginning of the summer when the mother of a Freshman candidate was so livid with me for not putting her on the squad. It was unfair that her grandfather's funeral was the day that tryouts had been scheduled, but she hadn't turned in a permission form or teacher-recommendation forms which had been due a week before and had been available for almost two months before.

The real issue was that she was academically ineligible. I double-checked the policy and touched base with both our guidance counselor and our principal to make sure I was as clear as I could be with the parent. To be honest, the child can be a divisive, volatile, and disrespectful tiger. She's let her anger get away from her and used obscenity in uniform before while on junior high cheer- but even if she was perfect, her grades would've kept her off.

But that's the kind of conflict that both makes me wonder how many more years I want to continue coaching cheer and makes me question the wisdom of trying to blog about it (even when I try to protect the identities of the kids I work with.

Facebook and Twitter are shorter, easier and more immediate, making blogging something that I'm not as disciplined at as I used to be. Life gets pretty busy too. All summer I thought I'd write but instead was caught up in church and family activities. And school is about to start, which will make things incredibly busy again.

It seems like we've never had the first football game for a week or so after school had gotten started. This year our first home game is next Friday, school starts Wednesday! Three of my four cheerleaders are scared to have to perform at the first pep rally. I can't blame them.

The pep band won't be playing at the game that night. Our principal actually left it up to me whether or not to even have a pep rally. I really think we should, but I don't know if I should push the girls too hard if they're not ready.

One, a Junior, was even ready to quit earlier this week.

"i really didnt wanna do it in the first place but (Senior) was pressuring me so i thought i would give it a try but now im having second thougts because im really not the cheerleading type i like cheering from the stands...and i hate being in front of crowds like at pep rallys i cant do that...im sorry," she told me.

I was having a heart attack.

I did my best to convince the Junior, "You're telling me that (Freshman Z), (Senior B), and (Sophomore R) ARE "cheerleader types" and you're not? (each example was a former cheerleader who was shy, awkward, or socially isolated). They're willing to get in front of people, but you're afraid to? Kiddo, you're smart, you're responsible, and you're gorgeous. Pep Rallies are nothing to be afraid of- let (Senior) carry them and just go along with the ride, they're fast and most kids who've cheered (like B, Z, and R) wind up actually thinking they're fun.

You're a natural leader and really fun. If you can handle Drill, Cheer will be a piece of cake.

I still think you should at least try a game or two. But, I understand how it can feel to be pressured so just like I said before, ultimately it's up to you- but I can tell you, if you can conquer this challenge (and I totally believe you can) you will come away with confidence and poise like you wouldn't believe. Doing this can put you over the top- it can be the difference between being kind of a leader and a majorly powerful woman who'll take on the world. If you bite down hard and try this this one short season, it'll be all gain for you.

Think on it, pray on it. Talk to someone you trust, adult or friend about it and let me know next week. I'll totally back off and not tease you or try to make you feel guilty (like how I tried to pressure Katie last year). But I really think you'll be great at this and this could be great for you."

Poise and Confidence are a couple of blocks on John Wooden's Pyramid of Success. I truly believe that these are powerful gifts that cheerleading can bestow on kids and I meant every word I said to her. But let's face it, I didn't want to go from 4 to only 3 (especially since one of the 3 is still pretty iffy). And I'll be honest, I'm not keen on the prospect of having Senior B or the "tiger" Freshman on squad this season either, if only because neither works well with the Senior we do have.

Fortunately, she tentatively agreed to give it a try. One of our Freshmen is really just giving it a try too ("iffy"), her true love is volleyball and her mother is nervous about her being too involved in too many things.

If you're actually a regular reader, or one of my friends or former cheerleaders that I shared this blog with, I'd sure appreciate your prayers and positive thoughts. Like every year. (:

This is the most I've written here in months and I really SHOULD be preparing lessons for next week. So anyway, if you come looking for this blog and don't find it, head on over to http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com and just run a search for "cheer," or "coaching," or "Pappa Bear" and you should still be able to find this kind of entry once in a while.

Pappa Bear; This is the Doghouse

Performing at the town band shell at the culmination of the Homecoming parade.

This is the Doghouse
X X X
Big Blue and White
X X X
This is the Doghouse
And we know how to fight!
Clockwise, starting with the Mascot; Erin (inside the costume) the Irish red head I had a big crush on, Chris my Freshman roommate who stole a girl from me, Tasha our Captain, Pete who ended up being an elementary principal in Hawaii, Tonya who bought me at the annual "slave auction," Jamie my stunting partner, Jim a misogynistic pervert, Amy, and me with big 80's hair. (I've withheld their last names to protect their privacy.

Go Big Blue!

I attended the little college on the prairie. Concordia Teacher's College was a Missouri-Synod Lutheran school in Seward Nebraska, founded in the 1894. I say "was" because like you can
't go back to Constantinople, because now they call it Istanbul, you can't find CTC because Sophomore year it dropped the "Teacher's" from it's name and became simply "Concordia College, Seward," and upon their centennial was renamed "Concordia University, Nebraska." CU is one of ten Concordias nationwide, from New York, to Selma, and from Portland to Austin. They're Christian colleges that offer liberal arts and business programs, but specialize in preparing professional church workers.

I starded out planning to become a commercial artist (Seward's art department rivals the Chicago Art Institute) . I struggled with whether to go pre-seminary to become a Lutheran pastor, but eventually wound up with a Bachelor's in secondary education with a double major in History and Art.


Mission Statement
Preparing Servant Leaders for Church and World

Alma Mater
Dear old Tow’r that shines above us,
Dear hearts that catch the gleam,
Though miles and years remove us
Of you we’ll always dream.
From Plum to Blue and yonder,
We rise Concordia’s own
To praise as far as we wander
The good that on us shone


Fight Song
On, Concordia, On, Concordia,
Pep that team of yours.
Fight, Concordia, Fight, Concordia,
‘Til we win this game.
Rah! Rah! Rah!
On, Concordia, On Concordia,
Pep that team of yours.
Fight, fellows, fight
And we will win this game

What's in a name?

Last week my Middle School Mascot quit after one game. She's in volleyball and it was really going to be the only football game she could come to anyway. She told her parents that it "wasn't like what she thought it would be like, she got tired and the costume was smelly." It's too bad because she did a fantastic job, very animated, really funny and engaging.

I visited with her parents a little at the Varsity game Friday night. We all agreed that it may also have had some to do with some of the personalities of the other girls on squad, on very zealous Seventh grader in particular. I reasoned that it's easier to avoid personality conflicts in basketball or volleyball than in cheerleading and I quipped that their daughter might now be able to avoid such conflicts, but that there was no escape for me.

They laughed and sympathetically asked how I could stand it, "you have three daughters at home, too, don't you? Geez, it's hard enough for us with just the one."

I told them than I didn't know whether God had used coaching cheerleading for the past 17 years as preparation for me having 3 girls or if He used parenting all girls to help make me a more patient cheer coach.

This reminded me of the name I chose for this blog. Originally I chose it as a title if and when I ever actually wrote a book about my experiences. It came from my very first year of coaching.

My wife was under a lot of stress our first year of teaching because she was asked to coach both junior high and high school cheerleading. When we went to our principal together to beg that she not have to coach both squads, he looked at me grinning and said, "I guess we'll need to find someone who could take on the junior high cheerleading... I noticed in your personnel file that you were a cheerleader in college."

Dumbfounded but dedicated to my wife, I reluctantly took on the responsibility. Little did I know what a difference that ONE season, freshman year of college would eventually  make in my life.

I hadn't intended to volunteer. At the time, I didn't feel qualified. I felt like Morgan Freeman in the Civil War epic, "Glory," when the Union Colonel, played by Matthew Broderick promoted him to Sergeant and gave him his stripes. "I'm not sure I'm wanting this," the middle-aged former grave digger confessed.

At any rate, here I was a 23 year old rookie teacher, fresh out of college, married but no kids of my own and my very first squad- a very fun, creative, enthusiastic group of Seventh and Eighth graders decided that it would be cute to nickname me "Papa Bear." It didn't really stick, they were pretty much the only squad to call me that, but it does pretty well exemplify part of my coaching philosophy. Kids need mentors, and girls need positive, appropriate (non-sexual) adult male influence. It's best if they get it from their dads, but not everybody has a stable two-parent family anymore.

 I was talking to my great friend (and former Mascot, now about 27) the other day. I stopped by his office in Denison (a bigger town near by) just to say hi. I had st picked up a prescription at the pharmacy across the street. By coincidence, I had come to Denison during their Homecoming parade. They're a bigger school with Freshmen, JV, and Varsity cheer squads for Football, Basketball, AND Wresting.

He was impressed by the stunts they performed in the parade and how sharp and synchronized they were. Whereas it was a struggle for me to manage to get a whole six girls to agree to cheer for football season this year and it's a struggle to get them to practice even once a week because of jobs and illnesses. One or my veterans attends Volleyball practice every night. Another one is a candidate for Homecoming Queen and felt like she had to make appointments at a tanning booth during practice.

We talked about my "blue" personality as compared to the need for disciplined cheerleaders to aspire toward greater excellence, he seemed to wonder out loud if at some unconscious level, kids who needed mentoring from someone as patient and tolerant as me.

He said though, that it would still be nice if I could get some cheerleaders who were already more confident, driven and maybe even competitive.

He figured maybe they'd bring along the more needy ones in their momentum. But then he paused and thought some more and counseled me that, "actually, those kids who don't seem to need mentoring, need mentoring too, they just don't know it."

I guess that's always been my philosophy. Legendary UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden believed that he was a teacher and a mentor and that building character in his players and preparing them for life was just as important as building their skills and preparing them for games.

Of course, that first squad may have just called me "Papa Bear" because of the novelty of having a guy coach junior high cheerleading. I did feel a little like Cary Grant in his 1964 movie "Father Goose." An antisocial, cynical, masculine curmudgeon alone on a Pacific island during WWII, Grant suddenly found himself thrust into a paternal role when a young teacher and her class of school-girls are stranded on the same island.

Or it could've been because I'm about 5' 10", 250 pounds with a goatee, so maybe I looked like a bear. God knows that when I get home, my wife has to put up with me being the typical man that comedians like Bill Engvall and Tim Allen joke about- like bears, all we really want is to eat, sleep, and mate.

Miss congeniality

    "The spirit stick got its start at a camp at the University of Redlands in California. We had a squad out there who cheered for the other groups and were full of spirit, but they had almost no talent. So, I decided they had to have some recognition because their great attitude was just as important as skill! I broke a little stick off a tree and awarded them the 'spirit stick' for their unusual spirit. Then we started doing this at all the camps, awarding the spirit stick to the groups who showed the most spirit each day, and whoever won it at the end of the week got to take it home with them. The spirit stick is the most outstanding award you can get. It's the symbol for spirit." ~Lawrence Herkimer

Awarding a spirit stick is not so much about skills and conditioning as it is about... well, SPIRIT.

There might be people who are better cheerleaders in that their moves are more accurate or more sharp, or they may be capable of more stunts or tumbling, or they may know more chants- but the spirit-stick recipient is the person who perhaps has the most positive attitude, the most supportive of their squad-mates, attempts the most direct crowd-encouragement, or if nothing else, they put forth the most effort (remember the formula e/a= s effort divided by ability equals success). So yes, it occasionally might go to someone who shows the most improvement. It's also important to remember that if you're not getting the spirit stick, that doesn't mean you aren't doing an awesome job.

Here are some of the qualities I will be looking for each game-

First, from our mission statement:
Positive, Committed Leaders stirring-up spirit, building excellence & character

    * Who remains positive the whole game?
    * Who demonstrates the most commitment?
    * Shows leadership (managing, facilitating and setting an example- not JUST directing)
    * Stirs-up school spirit (in crowd, team, and within the squad)
    * Strives to improve
    * and has personal integrity, principles and character


Those are pretty subjective, I admit, I can't see into your soul, after all, so I look for what's a lot easier to see. Things like:

    * School Spirit
    * Sportsmanship
    * Energy
    * Expression
    * Encouraging/supportive

And, I hope you'll read the posts I make about John Wooden's Pyramid of Success, because some of his"bricks" also embody the meaning of the spirit stick:

    * Friendship
    * Loyalty
    * Cooperation
    * Enthusiasm
    * Self-Control
    * Team Spirit

I will be awarding our spirit stick on a weekly basis. Winners will receive it each Monday and are responsible for returning it the following Friday before the game. They're also responsible (of course) for not letting it touch the ground. That's not actually about bad luck- it's symbolic of the fact that you should always keep your spirit up!

Yes, I welcome your input, but no, it's not a democracy, it's definitely a coach-ocracy. I want to hear who you all think deserves it. I especially want to hear from past recipients, but I do reserve the final word.

I don't believe that the NCA founder and inventor of the "Herkie" jump meant for the spirit stick to be a mere consolation prize. I think he'd agree that being positive, having good sportsmanship, and encouraging others is more important in cheerleading than impressive stunts, choreographed routines, or sharp moves and jumps.

Quincy's Angels

The following story ran in the Thursday, December 10, 2009 Dunlap Reporter

Boyer Valley freshman Quincy Baker has a lot of school spirit. He's really wanted to participate in school activities and be a part of a team just like his older brother, Senior Colton Baker. But Quincy is a special needs student with a lot of limitations. It isn't always easy for him to communicate, he's endured hundreds of surgeries in his short lifetime and because he's so slim, a lot of people assume that he's more frail than he is.

For a long time it looked like school sports was just out of the question. But part way through football season last fall, Quincy had three "angels" intervene for him. Senior Football Cheerleaders Sasha Meggers, Meckensie Jensen and Christine Harriott realized that Quincy's school spirit could be put to good use. All three girls had served at different times as helpers or baby sitters for "Q" as they call him. Sasha was practically a sister to him, having grown up as next door neighbors with the Bakers in Dow City.

The three Seniors talked to their Coach, Ted Mallory, and Quincy's Mom, Paula Ritterbush Eickholt and the next thing he knew, Quincy was part of the squad. Meggers, Jensen, and Harriott had been cheering for Boyer Valley since the seventh grade, so Quincy's been exposed to every cheer they have and the girls had often taught them to him. They joke about being his girlfriends, but whenever he se's a photograph of any of the three girls in a yearbook or on Coach Mallory's desk, he lights up and points to his squad-mates.

Qunicy cheered at home football games in 2009. He plans on cheering at home basketball games this year too, although because of the inherent danger of balls, players and referees, he will be in the stands directly beside the squad. At the season opener in Missouri Valley, on of the cheerleaders was actually hit in the head with a ball. Coach Mallory frequently has to dodge colissions and crashes when he takes pictures for the yearbook and the Reporter.

Quincy's three angels have moved on from cheerleading. Harriott will graduate at semester, Jensen is putting more hours in at her job in Soldier and Meggers has been focusing on being Captain of the Boyer Valley Drill Squad- which just brought home their fifth first place State rating for pom in a row. Even though they're moving on, the girls still have plans for Quincy. They want to take him to his first prom.

This year's basketball Cheer squad features four Sophomores, two Freshmen and a Junior. Only Sophomore Cammey Hast has cheer in high school before, though another four have cheered in junior high. Mallory has been impressed with their energy, enthusiasm and initiative at practices.

"If they can push past their stage fright," he says "they will be incredibly effective at raising spirit at games." He thinks they've got a lot of skill and have a ton of potential.

Mallory has coached both middle school and high school cheer at Boyer Valley since 2001. Before moving to Iowa, he coached at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School in Sylmar, California. He lives in Charter Oak with his wife Bethany and their three daughters.

Papa Bear;The places you'll go

Just this week I saw on facebook I saw how one of my former cheerleaders was a Las Vegas attorney taking a business trip to Chicago. That doesn't reflect on me in the least. This same week I bumped into another former cheerleader who had dropped out of high school and was working as a carny at county fairs. Maybe it goes to show you that all kinds of people cheer in high school. Maybe it shows what a diverse bunch of young people I've run across over the last twenty years.

Part of me thinks that it proves that the universe is unjust. That carnival barker was one of the sweetest, most gentle, picked on and made-fun-of, nerdy kids in school. The lawyer was the epitome of the "popular" kid, beautiful, successful, and generally unconcerned with the consequences of her attitudes and action.

Of course those are just my perceptions of them and my perceptions don't by any means represent all there is to know about either of them. That previous paragraph is obviously heavy with judgment and sympathy which is probably grossly misplaced. In fact I think that I was unfair to both of them.

The nerd tended to get on people's nerves and made decisions that weren't always healthy. I watched the popular girl treat underclassmen with patience and kindness and help them learn a great deal.

I'd like to think that both individuals gained something from cheerleading. Both have to be comfortable dealing with people Whether you're trying to convince someone on the midway to play your game or trying to convince a judge or client to follow your advice, a certain amount of confidence, presence, leadership, and poise are needed.

Cheerleading may not ensure that all of your dreams will come true or that your life will always be merry. But sixteen years of encouraging girls to stand in front of a crowd and encourage it to encourage their team's athletes has shown me that it definitely contributes to a person's character.

I have no idea wheter the cheerleader that became a lawyer still parties, or acts like the most important thing in the world are her looks. I don't really know her at all. I don't know the cheerleader who works for the traveling amusements company either. But I do know that she was upbeat, unashamed, effervescent, friendly and warm the whole time she was visiting with me. That made my day.

Life isn't always easy. Maybe she LOVES being a carny and I'm falling victim to society's stereotypes by worrying for her. I don't know. I DO know that it's a wonderful thing to make someone's day by being congenial and just giving the appearance of optimism. What a great thing it would be to be able to do that for even just one person everyday.

Cheerleaders aren't bubble-headed Pollyannas who are terminally cheerful. Some are remarkably intelligent, some struggle. Some are naturally effervescent and bubble, others wrestle with being melancholy, even clinically depressed. Cheerleading itself is supposed to be positive, confident, energetic, and fun.

It's my opinion that while cheerleading doesn't magically turn kids into happy, well adjusted perfect or successful people, it can be like a stake next to a sapling tree, or a wire cage around a winding tomato vine. It equips young people with the skills and attitudes which can help them cope, adjust, thrive and survive.

Papa Bear; Not what I expected

As a freshman in high school, I thought I had cheerleaders pegged. I believed everything I'd seen on TV and in movies. They were the hot, popular girls who looked down their noses at the rest of us and who were as far as I was concerned "fake."

When I was a sophomore working on the school newspaper there were even two girls who affectionately called themselves "Fake One" and "Fake Two." They were popular, they were gorgeous, they were both blond, and they were both named Jennifer. I'm not sure if the "fake" nicknames referred to the amount of time, make-up and hair spray that went into their appearance (this was the 80's), to the facade of professionalism they could each almost immediately put on when they had to deal with advertising clients or school officials, or to the fact that they seemed to have an aura of confidence and enthusiasm on the outside but struggled with the same pressures, anxieties and self-doubt that the rest of us do.

Wherever the nicknames came from they were both anything but fake. They were the real deal. One was a cheerleader and another was on pom squad. Both squads practiced everyday on concrete after school in the brutal Phoenix, Arizona sun. Both Jennifers may have looked like every high school boy's dream, but I doubt either of them had time for boyfriends because they were each involved in a variety of clubs, church and civic organizations, student publications and student government and STILL managed to maintain stellar grades.

That's when I first gained respect for cheerleaders. Shadow Mountain High School had around 2,600 students. For either of them to even get on their Varsity squads was an enormous achievement. Unlike the popularity contest or audition for senior cheerleaders that we see on TV and in the movies, competing for a handful of spots with dozens of other candidates for a panel of coaches and judges at a AAAA school is a huge ordeal. But one Jennifer also went on to become Managing Editor of our school paper (ranked in the top 10% of scholastic newspapers nationnally by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association) and the other Jennifer became our Student Body President and had to make a number of presentations and appeals to the school board on controversial issues.

So I for one had no misconceptions about cheerleaders being dumb blondes, sluts, or petty debutantes. No, they were forced to be reckoned with. Be that as it may, I never imagined myself ever being one, let alone coaching them some day.

It's Shadow Mountain, It's Shadow Mountain

The pride of every Matador

Sing of our honor, sing of our glory

It's Shadow Mountain now we're for.

Now and forever, always endeavor
To battle on to victory
For we will never stop 'til we're on top,
So fight on, Shadow Mountain, FIGHT

Ah the 80's, the most perfect time there ever was. Big hair and huge "brick" cell phones.

Back then they had Cheer, Pom, and Drill and you couldn't tell the difference because they all wore cheer uniforms. But I just sat in the stands and watched.

SMHS had great baseball teams, average basketball & volleyball, lousy football, but a pretty good band.

Papa Bear; Don't Look Down

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but cheerleaders learn it every year, usually in the searing heat and glare of the late summer sun at camp, long before the school year and the football season begin. The lesson is, Don’t look down. Put another way, attitude determines altitude.

Pilots know this. If you raise the aircraft’s nose up, the plane flies up. Cheerleaders have to learn this too; where your eyes go, your body tends to follow. If you look straight ahead at the crowd, you’ll keep your balance, look down, even for an instant, and your body will begin to lean.

Cheer is not the only sport in which this principle applies. A basketball shooter doesn’t watch the ball, to make a basket, they have to focus on the hoop. Golfers can try to follow their ball after they swing, but at that instant they follow through, they’d better be concentrating on where they want the ball to go if they want to avoid a wicked slice.

A few weeks ago PBS host Allan Alda talked to University of Arizona scientists about this on his show, Scientific American. It seems that whether it’s a tennis serve or a volleyball serve or a hunter after a pheasant, the principal is the same- where you look, there you go. Don’t look at the ball, look at where you want it to go, don’t look at the bird, aim at where you expect it to be the moment your shell reaches the same point in space.

If you don’t want to fall, don’t look down. Principles are things that can usually be applied in other areas of life. That’s why sports are good for kids, they learn valuable life lessons without even realizing it- a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Seems there have even been studies that suggest that while you’re walking down the street, if you tend to constantly be looking at the ground, your mood sours, whereas if you look up more, you’ll naturally become more upbeat, less tense, even happy. One theory is that when you look ahead or up, more light can make it into your eyes. In the fall and winter when days get short and clouds hide the sun or people stay inside all day, some people begin to suffer symptoms of what doctors call seasonal affective disorder (SAD). So looking up can literally, physiologically keep you “up.”

Let’s use our “don’t look down” principle as an analogy for other things.

Take people. If we expect the worse, they probably won’t disappoint us. If we’re critical of them or defensive toward them, they’ll treat us as we’ve treated them. If we look for even one good thing in them and appreciate it, we may even bring out the best in them.

Take politics. If a candidate focuses only on what’s wrong about his opponent, he or she only turns off the voter. America is fundamentally an optimistic place, voters want to know what the candidate’s hope and plans and qualifications are. Ever notice how when one person is looking up, everyone else starts looking up? We want to see what they see. “What is that? What are they looking at?” It’s compulsive. That’s leadership.

Take work. If you focus on how hard it is or how unpleasant, it only makes it more unpleasant. Time drags on when you watch the clock. If you focus on a goal or your accomplishments, it’s much easier.

Take business. If you focus on your obstacles, expenses or irate customers, you’re dooming yourself. If you focus on trying to build relationships, and on trying to provide your customers with what they want and need, you’re bound to succeed.

Take religion. There’s Law and Gospel, right? The Law shows us that this world is messed up because people are basically selfish and short sighted. What does that get us? It’s meant to humble us and make us realize that we need God. Great, but if we never stop focusing on how bad we are and how bad everybody is, we’ll never get on with living. The Gospel is the good news that God loves us even though we’re selfish and short-sighted. It shows us that He wants to have a relationship with us and He wants to help us be selfless and broaden our vision.

Take any problem we have or all of life for that matter. Take society in general. If we insist on always being critical or negative, where does that get us. Nowhere, stuck, stagnant, digging downward. But if we look forward or look up, guess what- we’ll at least stand firm and tall, at best, we’ll start moving forward.

Many a cheerleader who has the bruises to prove that “don’t look down” is one of the most important lessons anyone can ever learn.

Papa Bear; How did YOU ever become a cheerleading coach

How a nonathletic, middle-aged, heterosexual male became a middle school/high school cheerleading coach and the lessons it taught him about life, teamwork, confidence and fatherhood.

Once upon a time I thought about using a blog as a jumping off point for eventually writing a book about being a male cheer coach. Never have seemed to find the time or the self-discipline. But at least one journalist told me that they thought I'd make a good feature story because there are so few male cheer coaches and that maybe I should consider writing a book about it someday. Not much to it yet, but here's a start.

"How did you ever end up coaching Cheerleading?"

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one. Speaking as a Journalism teacher, if I wasn’t the male Cheer Coach, I’d probably encourage my students to interview him. I’d think there’s a story there, it certainly is a novelty.

When I attended the Iowa Cheer Coaches Association conference in Ames a couple of years ago, I was one of only two male coaches, and the other guy was coach at a junior college.

There has really only been one time, to my knowledge, that someone gave me a hard time about it. It was in L.A. An Athletic Director at another Christian school approached me, assuming I was one of the football coaches, to let me know something about that days game. When I explained to him that I wasn’t the football coach, I was the cheer coach, he laughed and made a homophobic joke and sympathetically asked me how I "got stuck" with cheerleading.

When I told him that I didn’t feel like I had been "stuck" with it and that I actually enjoyed it, he didn’t quite know what to do with me. He awkwardly back-stepped out of the conversation and made his way to the "real" coaches.

"So, how did you come to coach something like cheerleading?" I hear you ask. Alright, I’ll tell you.

I wasn’t ever particularly good at sports as a kid. Freshman year of college, I happened to be in the student union when some of the girls on the cheer squad came looking for guys to be "yell leaders." There were only four of them and they needed more to help them build pyramids.

I was full of school spirit and figured it was a great way to meet girls, so "what the heck." That was just one season, freshman year. My wife Bethany, on the other hand, didn’t cheer in college, but she did for years in high school.

The first year that we taught at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School, Bethany was expected to coach both junior high and varsity cheer. It didn’t take long for us to see that it was unreasonable to expect a rookie teacher to be expected to coach two sports simultaneously. When we approached our principal with the dilemma, he was more resourceful than we had anticipated. He had remembered from my file that I had cheered in college.

At first I was very reluctant, but we reasoned that Bethany and her high school cheerleaders could help me train my junior high cheerleaders. Besides we welcomed the additional stipend, meager as it was.

I have to tell you, if teaching is both one of the most difficult and yet most rewarding professions, coaching is even more so. You can’t get to know a student very well once a day during a fifty minute period alongside twenty or more other students, you can get to know them fairly well when you have just six or eight of them for a couple hours every single day. My hope and prayer is that by coaching, I can make a greater difference in the lives of a few young people.

I coached junior high cheer for about five years. After two or three, Bethany got out of coaching and took on other responsibilities as L. A. Lutheran’s Spiritual Life Director. No doubt, a step toward becoming a counselor, like she is today. During that time they went through several different Varsity coaches. I’d like to think that for a while, some of my junior high squads performed better than their high school counterparts. Eventually, they asked me if I would take over the varsity squad and assigned the junior high to a new rookie teacher.

I coached two more years in LA and I considered it a ministry, not just an after school activity. We prayed before and after games and once a week we had a meeting/Bible study kind of the way I imagine a Fellowship of Christian Athletes "huddle" might have at a public school. I wanted to be a "coach," and not merely a "sponsor," so I made every effort to work hard every practice and improve as much as we could. Our squads attended camps and attended workshops and combed through magazines and videos for ideas.

I’m honored to say that the cheer coach at Lutheran High in L. A. today cheered for me as a junior high student and for both Bethany and I as a high school student. It’s a kick to exchange email with her about what our squads are doing.

This is my third year coaching cheer at Boyer Valley and my ninth year coaching altogether. There are ups and downs, and anytime you’re dealing with teenagers, let alone teenage girls there are days when you feel like you’re going crazy. But it’s still a lot of fun, and as rewarding as ever. I may not be the best coach that’s ever been around the sport, and my squads may never get on ESPN, but I like what I do.

School spirit is important. Supporting the other teams, coaches, and athletes at our schools is important, and I’d like to think that being a positive adult male influence for young women is too.

Papa Bear; Forward & Dedication

Dedication

Dedicated to my girls.
First to my love Bethany and our three beautiful daughters.
Second to the spiritual daughters and sisters I’ve been blest with by embarking on this crazy ride. Thank you all for what you’ve taught me, I hope I’ve returned the favor.

Forward

Coaching Cheerleading is a trip. Usually it’s a lot of fun. Occasionally it can be pretty traumatic. One thing for sure is that it is never dull. People often say something to me along the lines of “I bet you have some stories to tell!” Every time that happens first I think to myself, “Oh, you have NO idea...” Then I sometimes tell them “I could write a book.” Then it occurred to me, maybe I really could. Heck, maybe I should.

It first dawned on me that I had an unusual story when I attended the Iowa Cheerleading Coach’s Association conference one spring. There was a conspicuous absence of men. There were a few male college cheerleaders and a couple of guys who ran either cheer, dance and gymnastics gyms or professional cheerleading camp and clinic associations who, no doubt had cheered in college themselves. These of course were all pretty impressive athletes. But there was only one other male who coached at a school in the entire state of Iowa, and he was coaching at a junior college.

It occurred to me that in my seven years teaching and coaching in Southern California, I had never encountered another guy coaching cheerleading.

I write a weekly column for the small-town newspaper that I try to work for during the summer. At least one reader tries to encourage me to write a book almost every time he sees me.
I have a friend who’s the reporter for the same newspaper (and two others run by the same publisher). She used to work for the Sioux City Journal and continues to freelance. She has commented numerous times that I’d make an interesting feature story.

So, at the risk of being too full of myself, I decided that maybe I ought to try to tell some of my stories myself. After all they’re not really my stories. They are the stories of the kids on the squads I’ve coached. Really, they’re the stories of kids everywhere because as powerful, funny or traumatic as I think any of them are; these are the kinds of things that all kids go through every day.

We adults don’t always look beneath the surface to really get to know the teenagers we encounter. If we did we would probably be floored. We’d probably be shocked by some of their struggles and their strength. Hopefully, we’d also be impressed what they’re capable of and by their awesome potential.

I also think that Cheerleading has been underestimated and shortchanged by our society. We satirize it and stereotype it but we overlook its incredible potential in our schools and in kids’ lives. We make a lot out of how “American” Baseball, Basketball and Football are, but cheerleading is an American invention too. Unlike the traditional “ball” sports however, cheerleading wasn’t born of conflict or even competition. Cheerleading was originally about community and coming together to supporting others. Ideally it encourages pride and promotes sportsmanship while providing a sense of belonging and purpose.

I hope that this book helps to show what cheerleading can and should be even when it honestly admits to some of the problems and pitfalls of this popular pastime.

It should probably go without saying that what follows are my versions of these kids’ stories. My memories and recollections and I own the opinions and the impressions that I share. Kids and their parents may have had different points of view, different details and certainly different opinions. Because of that and to protect peoples’ privacy I have change many of the names. As they say on TV, “to protect the identities of the innocent.” I promise that I’m not sensationalizing anything or making it up from whole cloth, but I’m not perfect and neither is my memory. I’m also shamelessly subjective and opinionated.

This is probably also a good time to say that the views expressed here and the provided resources here are not necessarily those of the school where I have been a student, cheered, taught or coached, their administrators or boards. The opinions included in this book are the sole responsibility of the author, however please don't be mad at me about them because I really hate having people mad at me.

There may not be anything world changing or all that impressive about an average guy who does an hopefully adequate job of coaching kids at small schools in a small town in the middle of the Midwest, but you’ve got to admit there is some novelty to an un-athletic, middle aged guy coaching a predominantly female sport like cheerleading. If nothing else, I hope you’ll find my perspective out of the ordinary.

If nothing else, it ought to be good for a few laughs at my expense.

Papa Bear; Introduction

Here's another attempt to use my blog here to help me develop my discipline as a writer. I had big hopes for my "Hometown News" section. I figured I'd fictionalize all of the amusing and/or unbelievable aspects of living in a small town and eventually I'd have enough stories for a book. Needless to say, I wrote two or three times but haven't come back to it in months.

Once upon a time I thought about using another one of my blogs, http://cheercoach.blogspot.com as a jumping off point for eventually writing a book about being a male cheer coach. Never have seemed to find the time or the self-discipline.

Once upon a time I thought about using cheercoach.blogspot as a personal journal about the trials and tribulations of being a junior high and high school cheer coach. But it seems like too many cheerleaders and occasionally parents actually read it and once in a while I'd strike a nerve or otherwise just say something that someone would take issue with. So, in the interest of good PR, I tried to totally back off of that.

Which left that blog kind of a fun photo album/scrap book for my cheer squad and a (hopefully) a means of communicating to both those cheerleaders and their parents. I'd like to hope that it is also a way for my former cheerleaders and mascots to get a glimpse of what we're going now and hopefully get back in touch with me or each other. But technology carries on and Facebook gets used a lot more for the things that blogs used to be.

At any rate, I really would like to be more disciplined as a writer and reflect on all the things I've learned and the kids I've known as a cheer coach- so here we are. I'm going to write at least once a week about my experiences as a cheerleader and coach.

I coach Varsity & JrHi Cheerleading at Boyer Valley MS/HS in Dunlap, Iowa.
I used to coach at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High in Sylmar, California.

I never expected that I'd ever end up coaching at all, let alone cheerleading. I certainly never expected to be coaching for so long. But I also never expected how much it would mean to me or how much it would change who I am and how I perceive things.

Whoever you are (if there's actually anybody out there reading this), I hope you like it.